Robert Pratt

Have you ever thought of jacking the day job and becoming a professional diver in tropical climes. Well one former member of ESAC did and here's a report from him on how he's getting on. Are we jealous? Surely not!

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Well with another Christmas coming I'm now in yet another country - the Cayman Islands to be precise. These are a series of three islands 480 miles south of Miami and 167 miles northwest of Jamaica. Myself and Julie are both working on the largest of the three islands - Grand Cayman.

The Caymans are actually a British Territory so no need for me to further massacre the Spanish language. A few old hang-ons here though i.e. all shops are closed on sundays, you can still smoke in bars and restaurants, and they drive on the left.

The Caymans are BLOODY EXPENSIVE! Accommodation costs are three times those on Cozumel and even general food and drink is on the pricey side since everything has to be imported to the island. Of course the presence of lots of millionaire money-laundering tax-exile types isn't exactly driving down the prices either.

The diving is very nice here - a wall dropping off to 6000ft and lots of beautiful sea fans, sponges and soft corals on the shallow dives, but certainly not as much marine life as in Cozumel. What I have got here though is a nice variety of instructing, divemastering and even wrangling stingrays at the famous Stingray City. That's a fun gig - I'm down there with a container of squid and a stick to try and fend-off the varacious snappers. Once I open the container even a little the scent attracts around ten southern stingrays of upto 4ft width who then proceed to nudge into me, land on my head, and generally badger me to be fed. There's also a 5ft green moray eel called 'psycho' who suddenly appears right next to you (that's the point you drop the squid and keep your fingers in!) He's actually quite cuddly if you avoid the pointy end.

Amazingly enough there's a national symphony orchestra here (albeit with only fifteen players) so finally I get to both dive and play. The orchestral repertoire is however slightly different from what I'm used to - currently in the pad we have Mission Impossible, Band of Brothers, and Meet the Flintstones. I can't see that appearing in the Canford brochure any time soon!

Start-up costs were pretty horrific when we first got here, especially since we had to buy a car, pay a months rent deposit etc but now things have hopefully settled down to the point where, even if we're never going to be rich, we can live life to a satisfactory standard.

For those I didn't manage to catch up with, this summer I spent a terrific five weeks back in the UK (the first time I'd been back in three years). It was great to see mum and dad's new house in Cheltenham, to get two weeks of playing at the Canford Summer School and to see so many old friends (and boy are they getting old ;-)


That said, (especially as it pissed-down for most of the time I was home) I'm not planning on returning to the UK for another couple of years, so if any of you are passing this way I'll be at Don Fosters Dive, Grand Cayman.

I've attached a couple of pictures in case you're either a) stuck inside cause it's raining (again), b) really bored, or c) missing me already :-)

With very best wishes from the Caribbean
Cheers
ROB